Fired Worker Files Lawsuit Against Hanford

A former Hanford worker long at odds with the nuclear reservation’s former lead contractor has sued the company, alleging she was wrongfully fired last year.

Inez Austin, who maintains she was targeted because she raised safety concerns, is seeking unspecified compensatory damages, special damages and attorney fees from Westinghouse Hanford Co.

Austin’s suit, filed earlier this month in Benton County Superior Court, alleges she was wrongfully fired in February 1996 from her $54,000-a-year job as a supervisor at a tank farm containing radioactive wastes from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Westinghouse - which was replaced by Fluor Daniel as Hanford’s primary contractor last October - maintains Austin quit by walking off the job and refusing to apply for a new job once the tank farm division had been reorganized.

Glenna Moulthrop, a Richland-based consultant for the company, said Monday she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.

Last October, after a ruling by the U.S. Department of Labor, Westinghouse agreed to pay Austin seven months of back pay plus benefits.